2014-15 Season Thursday Recap
Written By: Nick LeMart January 12, 2016 Today, we'll be recapping the extraordinary 2014-15 Thursday season, which followed up on the previous year's boom with undeniably hotter lineups. The programming average jumped by a whopping 38%, the biggest increase the television industry has seen since the milestone 1945-46 season (when color was added). There was a lot of controversy going into this season since the one show that actually broke 200+ (Grey's Anatomy) in 2013-14 had concluded, but everything ultimately fell right into place. While ABC's overall average took a big hit this season due to it no longer being inflated by the ridiculously huge Grey's Anatomy ''numbers, they were inarguably in a much better place overall, and that was confirmed by their victory. Early in the season, the picture wasn't as bright for the alphabet network. The one show that looked like a sure-thing coming into this season—''Last Resort (36)—was a major debacle and got shipped to Tuesdays right before November sweeps. 8pm lead-off Nashville (200), which was shipped from Wednesdays, gave ABC an iconic start to the night. ABC premiered the legendary Wisteria Lane (303), a Desperate Housewives spin-off, at 10pm but moved it to 9pm once they saw its potential. It ended up registering as the top show of the season as well as the top new show in the history of television. They occupied their 10pm hour with the final season of Sunday veteran Revenge (243), where it soared to nearly powerhouse levels. This block, billed as "Guilty Pleasure Thursday" by ABC, consistently dominated the night and gave them a lot of staying power. CBS fell another rung down to third place this season. As was expected, their 8pm comedy hour of The Big Bang Theory (107) and 2 Broke Girls (107) had perfect retention, but both shows fell hard to merely solid levels (from big hit and powerhouse levels, respectively). 9pm painted a brighter picture with the ever-reliable Two and a Half Men (153) maintaining its title of #1 megahit comedy. Two and a Half Men led into the disappointing final season of How I Met Your Mother (81) during the fall, but then seamlessly launched fellow megahit Central Perk (150) at midseason. At 10pm, Elementary''' (92) made significant improvements over its prior season but it was low enough to warrant a banishment to Mondays for the 2015-16 season. FOX buckled down for another season in the gutter. The news wasn't necessarily all that bad, as former marginal player '''The X Factor (125) jumped into big hit territory this season and gave FOX some hope. However, former Monday megahit The Following (86) failed to make any noticeable improvement on what Glee did in the slot last year. But its performance was good enough in FOX's eyes to warrant another season on Thursday. NBC made somewhat of a comeback this season, snatching the silver by a comfortable margin. At 8pm, they got a solid performance from Revolution (107), and Chicago Fire (119) qualified as a hit at 10pm. But 9pm was sort of a rollercoaster. Surprising flop 1600 Penn ''(59), which was the odds-on favorite for #1 show at the end of last season, apparently hit a creative bump and the audience quickly fleed, leading to a Friday banishment at midseason. In the fall, it led into the so-so final season of ''Parks and Recreation (79), which floundered early on but straigtened itself up down the stretch. At midseason, NBC brought in the final season of Parenthood (102) to occupy 9pm, where it performed about as good as NBC could've hoped for considering the situation.